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Tremors of Anxiety Over Arctic Drilling

By Clifford Krauss May 24, 2012 7:50 amMay 24, 2012 7:50 am

Jim Wilson/The New York TimesEdward Itta, a former North Slope Borough mayor, with a skinboat frame near Barrow’s whalebone arch. He says he is beginning to rue some of the concessions he helped negotiate with Shell on its drilling plan.

As John Broder and I write in Thursday’s Times, the Obama administration is backing Shell’s audacious efforts to open Alaska’s Arctic waters to oil drilling. The plan offers the promise of greater national energy security, the thinking goes, and economic benefits for Alaskans.

But the Inupiat Eskimos who live closest to the drilling on the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, who are the most likely to benefit economically, are also most likely to suffer if there is an oil spill.

Villagers in windswept Barrow fear that Shell’s seismic work and drilling will disturb the bowhead whale migration, forcing whales away from their food and whalers dangerously far offshore to catch them. Worse yet, they say, a spill could poison the whales.

But it is more than the whales they fear for; it’s their very way of life.
The bowhead whale is at the center of the culture for Inupiat Eskimos. Everyone remembers the first time their parents brought them out on the ice to join the community to butcher – the word is “harvest” here – the killed whales for all to eat. Children are taught not to argue or raise their voices and that they need to work together to prepare for future responsibilities: whaling crews hunt silently so not to spook the whales.

“The bowhead whale and the materials it provides are the meat of my life,” said Vernon Rexford, an artist who carves on moose antlers and etches various animal figures on dried baleens, the plates that filter food in the mouths of whales. “They talk about the jobs, the promises of education and support for the economy, but that is counterfeit compared to the dangers of an oil spill.”

Among those most concerned is Edward Itta, a former mayor of the North Slope Borough who negotiated and won several concessions from Shell. He now has second thoughts. He noted that the latest Shell drilling plan is in some ways even bigger than the original one that he sued to stop as mayor – up to 10 wells drilled over two years in two seas, not one.

“I am disappointed,” Mr. Itta said in an interview. “Man, this is too much, too soon, too fast.” But more than anything else, he seemed resigned: he feels he did the best he could:

“We know the history of major multinational corporations, and I am not saying they rape and pillage the environment, but they have to make a profit,” he said. “Some are better than others. That’s history.”

Other community leaders say the risks are worth it. “There is only one industry here,” said Richard Glenn, a senior executive of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, which already has oil service contracts with Shell. “Life before oil meant raw sewage in your front yard — if you were lucky, in 55-gallon drums. If you come to the conclusion that our communities depend on sustained exploration and production of oil, then you follow it. We need to drill.”

But as whaling crews began cutting trails through the offshore ice with pick axes this spring for the seasonal whale hunt, there was plenty of dissent tinged by fear.

“Those oil guys can think whatever they want, but we know how harsh this ocean is,” said Roy Nageak, an aging whaling captain, as he struggled to climb a high ice ridge four miles offshore to find the smoothest path to cut his trail. “They don’t know what they are getting into.”

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